Technology and Software can Revolutionize the Audit/Inspection Process (Compliance Online September 2008)

This is the story of the ISO 9001 Auditor who's been on the road for two weeks travelling around auditing his clients. He's got a mountain of paperwork and files in his laptop case, checklists waiting to be entered and at home three courier boxes of Non Conformances waiting to be cleared from last month's audits. Then there is the Global Compliance Director at the Fortune 500 that needs to report on the top 10 company exposures but she's still waiting for all the individual divisions to conduct and input their risk assessment data. Meanwhile their kids are texting their friends, emailing photos they took with their phone and checking their social networking webpage from any computer in the world. Is there a connection? Can these worlds co-exist or even come together? The answer is a resounding YES! Such a connection has been developed and the results have revolutionized the audit, inspection and project management worlds.

Those of us in the business of audit or inspection services and compliance system management are all too familiar with this story. Currently whether it's an internal audit or a 3rd party audit the process has remained largely unchanged since audits began. The auditor prints out a checklist for the appropriate audit, location, and anything else and then they conduct the audit looking for proof of compliance. This is what it takes to be in the field, speaking to process owners and providing the data needed for verification. These checklists are long and obviously a paper based system means that in order to provide a report to their customer it must either be legible or typed into a document.

Both of these solutions take time to create and then the document still needs to be linked for on-line access. Any resulting NC's must be cleared by either couriered packages back to the auditor, emails, and faxes to demonstrate that the NC has been cleared. Again, time and money are required for these and often there is a delay of 1 or 2 weeks until the auditor gets back home to examine the documents. It's only at the end of this process when the auditor can recommend certification or maintenance to the internal reviewer. Those of you familiar with this process know that the internal reviewer may require additional information at which point this whole process starts again. For a new ISO 9001 certification, receiving a certificate could take a month after an audit to be delivered.

The Global Compliance Director is in a similar situation waiting for access to the results of multiple locations risk assessment data in order to determine their top exposures around the world. The calendar may show that the audits were scheduled and presumably conducted but until the results are emailed or linked to a database, confirmation, follow up and trend analysis cannot begin. Not only that, she has really no idea of the status of things at any given moment.

Enter text messaging, PDA's, tablets, laptops/PC's, global access to personal social networking websites, GPS, and camera phones. How do these relate to the world of auditing and inspections? Technology has been developed that utilizes these hand held devices, tablets, or laptops/PC's with software to audit 'live' so to speak.

This cutting edge software combined with field devices has revolutionized the audit and inspection process for companies ranging from construction, registrars, to government. The possibilities and applications are limitless.

Let's start with the scheduling of an audit; if it is a new client a scheduler needs to determine which auditors have the appropriate background, availability, and geographic location. Once an auditor is identified typically a few emails or phone calls are exchanged until a suitable date is found between the client and the auditor. Now with the use of compliance management software, a web based calendar, that integrates with Outlook or Lotus Notes can be used to quickly see auditor availability and the client can accept or reject an appointment electronically, linking back to the calendar.

Increased speed and ease of use may result in the ability to re-deploy resources to other tasks. The latest compliance management software allows companies or government organizations to configure their system framework, checklists, and access to data as appropriate in a fast and efficient manner. Regardless of what is being audited (an ISO 9001 system, playground safety, or a restaurant health and safety inspection) the appropriate and most current versions of a standard, guideline, or inspection checklist are utilized every time without needing to verify revision number. Once the audit is scheduled the appropriate documents are selected and this information is ready for download to the auditor's mobile device, laptop, or tablet as appropriate.

Now instead of a paper-based checklist that requires input afterwards, the auditor can literally reply to the questions one by one, in the field on their device. Imagine the ability to note Non Conformances, comments, general findings and recommendations electronically during the audit. For increased audit efficiency default responses to individual questions may be available thereby increasing speed and terminology consistency across auditors. Additionally, depending on the device in use, an auditor could take a photograph of the NC and it will automatically link to that particular question, and can even be distributed electronically by email to all relevant parties. At the end of the audit the results are then synched back to the database and if desired, responsible individuals will be emailed a copy of the report the same day.

An administrator of the system like the Global Compliance Director in our story is then able to run a report by location, division, and country, whatever variables are pre-configured. Additionally those responsible for clearing Non Conformances can reply to action emails, send photos, update documents, provide necessary records, whatever is required for the auditor to clear the NC and recommend registration (or maintenance thereof). This system is completely automated so all of these activities can happen in real time when connected.

This simplification of the audit process and increased data management capabilities has resulted in decreased costs, reduced risks, increased compliance, and improved business control, along with providing a platform for strategic growth. How easy is this to use? Let's take a look at the results in the use of such software at Bureau Veritas and by the Australian Department of Defence.

Bureau Veritas wanted to utilize mobile devices to manage their Health and Safety, Environment, Water Safety, Fire Safety and Asbestos Safety Audits. They used compliance software technology to enable their project managers and consultants to spend less time adjusting audit templates, scheduling meetings, collecting data and writing reports. The result was they were able to use their core areas of expertise to improve the level of service provided to their clients. The Director of Operations Stephen Hendrey expected audit time from inspection to report to be reduced up to 50%. Further, their teams were able to dramatically reduce the time necessary to provide a detailed report, all while using an automated workflow management application from action closeout to reporting.

The Australian Department of Defence utilizes compliance management software for a range of compliance activities including OH&S, deployability and operational readiness. This includes many aspects of equipment, personnel, material management status, corporate governance, technical and regulatory framework compliance. They needed a system that would enable not only scheduled audits to be conducted but also 'surprise' inspections as well. An example of the range of activities covered by the software includes the ability to tag and inspect the validity of rifles and ammunition. The DOD feels one of the greatest benefits of the new technology is the reporting capabilities and that important issues can be immediately dealt with during the audit. As a matter of notation, they are using this across 10 units of the Land Army, infrastructure of the units, headquarters, hospitals and logistics centers, ranging in size from 50 to 800 people across geography the size of the USA.

The DOD reported that for a typical two day paper based audit they expect to see a 50% reduction in data collection time. They have already seen an initial 20% time savings with those employees already familiar with PDA's, and this has been shown to increase with familiarity and usage. "The ability to produce a comprehensive report with photos, non compliances and actions allocated as soon as the site visit is completed saves an incredible amount of time. Our team can then focus on the next site visit, instead of wasting time on data entry and producing reports then closing out actions. This software does this automatically for us." Finally they said "the almost instant reporting across geographically dispersed sites is one of the strengths of the system - providing us with far greater visibility of the level of compliance across our operating units. Additionally the ability to track compliance completion of actions via the management system is seen to be a major advantage."

In order to bring this process into the 21st Century, technology needs to be adopted to facilitate business management and controls. There is existing software available designed to simplify the inspection, audit and certification data collection and reporting process. As we've seen the results range from a better use of resources, decreased costs, increased visibility, and increased compliance.

So what happened to our over burdened auditor and Global Compliance Director? This story has a happy ending. The Auditor now travels with just his laptop, tablet or PDA and no longer has courier packages waiting for days at home to clear out Non Conformances. His customers are no longer leaving messages asking if he knows when their certificate is coming; and our Global Director of Compliance can sleep at night because she knows what the company's top 10 risks are and they have been addressed.

Both of their companies have realized significant time and cost savings because of the flow and automation of the software compliance system. The ROI was almost immediate and the ability to use a dashboard to view KPI's at a moment's notice is truly amazing. Compliance management software has provided global access to information, automated reporting capabilities, and the time necessary for PRE and POST audit activities has significantly been reduced. The result is a completely new way of conducting the audit process providing real cost and time savings for those that make the leap.